phelps

well, actually Curatoli has the chance of his life...now he has to face Sandro Bazadze, then the winner of Gordon vs Yoshida... if he misses out on a medal today, he should be kicked off from Budapest to Naples... in the meantime, the Korean armada already lost 2 of their men...Ha Han Sol and Kim Junho are out...

and it's over...easy win for our no.1... so we have 2 guys left in the competition...but now it's when things get difficult...

however, Berrè wasted a big chance against a not unstoppable Dolniceanu (and he definitely can't blame anybody other than himself), meanwhile Samele survived a tough battle against Danilenko... right now, Curatoli has a big margin over Rahbari...

yeah, but who knows why? at least 85% of those weird decisions were going always in the same direction... p.s. Hungarian can hate Montano...it's their right (until they don't do anything stupid)...but it was ref's job that wasn't good enough to be a world champs assault...

I wouldn't say so... being Italian, obviously I'm focusing more on our athletes (especially in the preliminary stages of any event, when you can choose what to watch) and I write about them... for sure I've seen as many "wrong" results not involving the Italians, but I don't have any interest in coming here to write about it, unless it happens in the finals phase... for sure I'm not wasting my time writing that the Chinese divers or the Russian gymnasts and figure skaters are always overpayed, as it doesn't change anything in Italian perspective (and I just can't keep track of all the disasters I normally see in sports like Boxing -and not only Boxing)... still, it's there for anybody to see what usually happens...

big time robbery...especially the last hit (he was 14-14 against Csanad Gemesi), it was a real home call of the worst type...

meanwhile in women's epee, we're facing the well expected disaster (and the fact that our girls lost just at the final hit is even more depressing)...

I just can't believe what they did to Montano...

Moellhausen! she's in the top 16 after defeating no.9 seed Zhu... unfortunately now she has to face Alberta Santuccio, who unexpectedly beat Courtney Hurley in the round of 32 (actually, bot Hurleys are already out)...

5 Star International Skateboarding Open of Nanjing Global Qualifiers After three days of intense heat and practice the first Skater dropped into her qualifier run Wednesday morning. Three runs, three chances to own a spot in the Quarter finals for the 60 riders coming from around the globe to compete at the International Skateboarding Open in Nanjing qualifier. Jagger Eaton (USA), here above with one of his flowless Switch Stance FS ollies in the deep end, took the first place in Men division followed by Elias Nilsen (Norway) and George Richards (Australia). Top ten ranking of the Men qualifier (there were 18 places for the quarterfinals up for grabs) follows here below: 1 Jagger Eaton 2 Hericles Fagundes Galle 3 Kieran Woolley 4 Oskar Rozenberg 5 Pedro Acosta Carvalho 6 Felipe Foguinho 7 Tyler Edtmayer 8 Steven Piniero 9 Ayumu Hirano 10 Ethan Copeland On the Women side of things the qualifier have been won by China own Xin Zhang, here above doing an inverted aerial during her run, followed by the two fine Australian riders Amar Hadid and Charlotte Heath. Top ten ranking of the Women qualifier (in any case, all the starting riders were sure of a place in the quarterfinals) follows here below: 1 Xin Zhang 2 Amar Hadid 3 Charlotte Heath 4 Hunter Long 5 Jordan Santana 6 Taniah Meyers 7 Amelia Brodka 8 Valeria Bertaccini 9 Lucrezia Zarattini 10 Heini Luotola Impressive skateboarding went down by many of the skaters, showing the variety in the range of tricks and styles of skateboarding that you expect from a group of skaters coming from such diverse countries and backgrounds. Thursday will be the time for Quarter Finals and this will get hotter and hotter. The full results of qualifications are available in the result section of the WorldSkate website: http://www.worldskate.org/skateboarding/results/category/571-iso-park-nanjing-2019.html

naaa...if at least 3 between ITA, GER, RUS and HUN qualify as a team, he won't have any trouble to make the individual cut (his only serious opponent would be Bazadze, who's not that consistent)...

I don't know...probably she just lost some motivation or simply she's getting old... suddenly, after 2016 she just had a vertical drop in her achievements... the problem is that nobody in our team will never leave her out because of her past success (and this will hurt badly our team results)...

yeah, those were the "social idiots", but she was angry only with Bruni and the Italians (she also released an interview to the French TV, which then she was forced to apologize for by the French federation)... her rivalry with Bruni dates a long time back...they were both born in 1990 and it's since the youth classes that they're fighting against each other...and in all these years they have developed a harsh mutual contempt...

expected... she's no longer the woman she used to be... but before someone in our team would eventually take notice of that, we must waste at least an entire Olympic qualification...

in the past, they used to rank 5th the fighter defeated in the quarterfinals by the eventual winner, 6th the fighter defeated by the eventual silver medallist, 7th the fighter defeated by the loser to the eventual winner in the semis and 8th the remaining fighter... but nowadays the olympic boxing isn't run by aiba anymore, so I don't know what they're gonna do (I'd rather prefer a 5th-8th place playoff between all the quarterfinals losers...definitely...but with that bunch of cheaters, you never know)...

the Italians ended up 5th and 6th...with or without her, it wouldn't change anything for them... she just loves to play dirty...and when the judges have enough of her and her methods and get her DSQ, she's only capable of shouting at the "Italian mafia" (see Rio 2016...someone must be really brave to call "injustice" her disqualification after what she did that day)...

when chaos and the fight for the front row before the final sprint started, she jumped over her arch-rival Bruni and hit her hard once again, almost making her lose her swim glasses and leaving some signs on her face... and she also used her typical aggressive methods also over other swimmers in the last lap of today's race... at least we already know that the Olympic race won't be that dirty...

just open the main draws (look for the links I posted in the previous days/hours)... and you have the detailed schedule of each assault (and on which piste it's set to happen)... of course you have to follow round by round to know what happens after the first one... p.s. the semifinals & finals session is scheduled for 6 p.m. CET (at least tomorrow)...

so, we lost another piece of the puzzle even before the main draws started...this time it's Sofia Ciaraglia in the women's sabre (this girl is really disappointing...she has big talent, but once she's got to the senior ranks, she's never been able to deliver...)... and the other girls' draw is really awful...they all are in the same half of the draw and all of them will have to face very tough opponents already in the early rounds...it will be very difficult to see one of them in the top 8 (not even dreaming of a podium finish)... on the men's side, our Foil specialists also have a difficult draw, especially the reigning world champion Foconi should face people like Cheremisinov in the round of 16 and Massialas or Le Pechoux in the quarterfinals... moreover, Garozzo and Cassarà are set to face each other in the round of 16 (if they can make it through to that round)...only Avola has a couple of warm-up rounds before facing (on paper) Enzo Lefort as the first "big name" on his route...

main draws for next Saturday... men's individual Foil https://2019budapestfencing.com/files/hunfencing/2019_wfc_bud/smf-in/index.php?page=tableau64.htm women's individual Sabre https://2019budapestfencing.com/files/hunfencing/2019_wfc_bud/sws-in/index.php?page=tableau64.htm

my absolutely favourite Summer Olympic Sports right now are Fencing and Judo, then Karate, Wrestling and Field Hockey complete my Top 5... then... 2nd tier (very close to the top 5, had much trouble separating them): Sport Climbing, Slalom Canoeing, MTB Cross-Country races, Swimming, Athletics and Handball (especially the women's tournament)... 3rd tier: Archery, Beach Volleyball, Rowing, Shooting (especially shotgun shooting and the rapid fire pistol event), Triathlon, Taekwondo, Track Cycling... 4th tier: everything not mentioned elsewhere... Bottom of the pile: Diving, Gymnastics, Equestrian Sports (even if sometimes I like to watch Jumping and the Cross-Country race of the Eventing discipline), Surf, Skateboarding... special notes: I like Football (I could put it in the 2nd tier), but not the women's side (in general) nor the men's Olympic tournament, which I consider disrespectful of the Games for not being played by the best players of the sport... and the same it's for Baseball (this would surely be among the top 5, if only...), actually it's even more so, as I normally like Baseball more than Football (but not this farce that's gonna be the Tokyo tournament)... moreover, I have the same kind of feeling for Golf (even if in this case the best players in the world could be there, if only they wanted to)...I love it (2nd tier...very close to the top 5), but the Olympic tournament is the least attractive of the entire season to me... p.s. I don't even bother to consider them sports and therefore they are not even in my ranking Artistic Swimming, Rhythmic Gymnastics, Trampoline, BMX Freestyle (and the same is for 3x3 Basketball, even this is a legitimate "sport" to me...just it's not for me)... p.p.s. (Ice) Hockey still remains my favourite sport overall...also in Summer!

Aurelie Muller should be banned from open water swimming... she perfectly describes the concept of "unsportsmanlike conduct"...

WBSC unveils schedule for Softball Americas Qualifier in Surrey The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) today unveiled the schedule for the 12-nation WBSC Softball Americas Qualifier, which will be held in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, from 25 August to 1 September. The top two teams in the WBSC Softball Americas tournament in Surrey will qualify for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, joining host Japan and USA as four of the six nations to be qualified for Tokyo 2020. The qualifier will be played over eight days of competition and feature 42 games. “This international competition in Surrey will be one of the most important softball tournaments ever held in the Americas, granting two precious spots to the historic return of softball at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020,” said WBSC Softball Division Chairman, Tommy Velazquez. “Today the road to Tokyo is clear for our softball athletes across the Americas and what they need to accomplish to fulfil their Olympic dreams.” Following a five-day Opening Round, the top three squads from each group will advance to the Super Round. Group A features world No. 3 Canada, No. 4 Puerto Rico, No. 17 Cuba, No. 18 Guatemala, No. 25 Argentina and No. 39 Bahamas Group B includes No. 5 Mexico, No. 14 Brazil, No. 16 Venezuela, No. 19 Dominican Republic, No. 20 Peru and No. 57 British Virgin Islands The two teams with the best overall records following the Super Round will earn qualification into the Olympic Softball tournament at the Tokyo 2020 Games. The full schedule as well as all tournament information, including rosters, stats and standings of the WBSC Softball Americas Qualifier, will be found at the official tournament website. https://olympicsoftball.wbsc.org/en/2019/e-2019-americas-softball-olympic-qualifier

this week it's time for a new Park event awarding useful points for the Olympic qualification... 5 Star International Skateboarding Open of Nanjing (CHN) tomorrow the global Open qualifiers will be contested, meanwhile on Thursday (quarterfinals) and Friday (semifinals and finals) the actual Nanjing Open will be on stage... here the detailed schedule: http://www.worldskate.org/component/phocadownload/category/566-program-crownboard-open-nanjing-2019.html?download=3769:skateboarding-iso-park-nanjing-2019-provisional-program-updated-on-july-11th

main draws for next Friday... women's individual Foil https://2019budapestfencing.com/files/hunfencing/2019_wfc_bud/swf-in/index.php?page=tableau64.htm men's individual Epee https://2019budapestfencing.com/files/hunfencing/2019_wfc_bud/sme-in/index.php?page=tableau64.htm